Bannerlord map too mountainous?

[DanAngleland]

I think thoughtful use of rivers, with few bridges, would have been a good way to provide extra choke points or channeling of armies towards one another without having quite so many mountains; I think that would make for a more realistic and appealing map- you wouldn't have to make it an absolutely impassable obstacle either, you could provide realistic but inconvenient options such as making a fleet of rafts to take an army across, but this would require time and wood harvested from a nearby forest to accomplish (my idea is you would have to go to the forest and spend time harvesting timber on the world map, then carry these materials to the river).

Also, there could be alternative routes to a lot of areas, but alternatives which have costs to them. So going the 'other' way might involve traversing a high moorland (or desert or marsh, etc.) where there is not much food to forage and it is cold, reducing morale and increasing attrition (men either dying of illness or deserting), plus there may not be useful paths because it is not a commonly used route, meaning your travel speed would be slower. The upside to using this route may be to bypass an enemy castle or avoid an army you know or expect to be waiting for you, or to avoid crossing the territory of a neutral faction who you don't want to anger.

 

[Yabloko]

The only problem I see is that mountains are arranged 'randomly'. If you look at any real world height map such as this:

隐藏

It becomes apparent that mountains do not form in clusters of ridges but rather (usually) in chains from which rivers emanate or plateaus where these rivers cut valleys. It might be that Calradia is naturally rugged, but even then the terrain would not be a uniform mass of mountains, instead it would have a general skape.

隐藏

You laid it out perfectly. Exactly what I mean by it being unrealistic. It just seems like the mountains are randomly strewn about.

you guys never been in the alps...

u kids just look at maps and complain go irl out and compare. you just look at it from super far away. if you zoom further in it will be more random

I live close to the Pyrenees, so I've seen my fair share of mountains.
Now I'm not saying Bannerlord's map will be unfun or bad, just that it doesn't seem realistic to me. Mountains will generally speaking not be evenly spread like in OP's photo except if you are literally inside a mountain range, but Calradia being one continent sized plateau would be quite weird.
More often than not mountains will spread from a focal point outwards like the massif central or in a spine like the apennines, and in both cases they can be interspersed with valleys carved by rivers, but they will eventually give way to wide plains.

 

[The Bowman]

Honestly surprised how that this is a gripe with people. I never felt the BL map was too mountainous.

I thought they explained their intention to force much more choke points on the map, thus leading to more contests over strategically important points and routes. I think this is a welcome addition, as the WB map is simply just too open. Seriously. In WB opposing armies run amok around the map  without necessarily even coming to conflict. Aside from Rhodoks and the mountains around the khergit plains, the map is basically just a vast plain.

Well, now let me express my concern on this logic that's been branded as innovative by TaleWorlds.
The truth is that we've all had that moment when we wondered why does that pesky enemy warlord care so much about raiding a remote village that of course, is yours. Undoubtedly, it was always more annoying when you tried to console yourself with the naive idea that this time, King Harlaus gave you a nice little hamlet in the middle of the kingdom, where it'd be absolutely untouchable. Of course...this is what you hoped for during you last 101 campaigns when at some point in the game you decided to leave your baby for a minute and then discovered that something was smoking in the distance.

...and then TaleWorlds decided that this cannot be the case with Bannerlord, and guess what: they (probably) didn't dramatically improve the party behavior, nor did they invest too much time in complicated systems that would allow the AI to recognize kingdom boundaries, plan logical offensive campaigns or put up a reasonable defense when necessary. Judging by the way the map was designed, I genuinely fear that the best solution they decided to come up with was to snap a lot of mountains all across the map, and hope that there'd be more chances for an enemy lord riding to your hamlet in the middle of the kingdom to be accidentally caught by a random patrolling party at one of the many choke points around the map.

From the very first moment they explained us the idea about mountains, I was worried that these choke points would be used as an excuse to drop the plans for a more advanced campaign AI, that would actually take logical decisions, and the more time passes by, the more I fear that they're still OK with choke points acting as a substitute for a better AI.

 

[Kentucky 『 ＨＥＩＧＵＩ 』 James]

This is the same as what happened with Total War. When they decided to make the world fully traversible in Rome Total war insterad of the provvince system in the first two games, the AI couldn't cope, and would spam out unit armies or sit around doing nothing. So with NTW and S2TW onwards they just filled the map with ridiculous choke points, effectively making it a set of provinces like in the first two games, but with the pretense of free movement. Notice how many impassible forests there are in Rome 2 and Attila? Or how the entirety of Japan is just valleys in Shogun 2?

 

[Crowcorrector]

The only problem I see is that mountains are arranged 'randomly'. If you look at any real world height map such as this:

隐藏

It becomes apparent that mountains do not form in clusters of ridges but rather (usually) in chains from which rivers emanate or plateaus where these rivers cut valleys. It might be that Calradia is naturally rugged, but even then the terrain would not be a uniform mass of mountains, instead it would have a general skape.

隐藏

You laid it out perfectly. Exactly what I mean by it being unrealistic. It just seems like the mountains are randomly strewn about.

you guys never been in the alps...

u kids just look at maps and complain go irl out and compare. you just look at it from super far away. if you zoom further in it will be more random

I live close to the Pyrenees, so I've seen my fair share of mountains.
Now I'm not saying Bannerlord's map will be unfun or bad, just that it doesn't seem realistic to me. Mountains will generally speaking not be evenly spread like in OP's photo except if you are literally inside a mountain range, but Calradia being one continent sized plateau would be quite weird.
More often than not mountains will spread from a focal point outwards like the massif central or in a spine like the apennines, and in both cases they can be interspersed with valleys carved by rivers, but they will eventually give way to wide plains.

Do you even mountain bro? 

 

[vicwiz007]

As long as they arent too prevalent on the actual battlefields, i dont care. I think they will make for some very cool campaign map strategy, and thats why they designed it this way. Imagine a scenario such as knowing an enemy faction will try to invade soon. Instead of having to sit at the castle and wait like in warband, you could force an open battle in one of the mountain passes if you now they have to go through there. Also think of trading mechanics mentioned in the previous blog. You could do something like cut off rival's supply of certain materials easily, and it would be easy for the rival to stop you if he were powerful enough.

I dont know. Im interested to see it in action at the very least before i go and dis it. Worst case scenario (i hate having to say this) mountains are easily modded out.

 

[Kentucky 『 ＨＥＩＧＵＩ 』 James]

As long as they arent too prevalent on the actual battlefields, i dont care. I think they will make for some very cool campaign map strategy, and thats why they designed it this way. Imagine a scenario such as knowing an enemy faction will try to invade soon. Instead of having to sit at the castle and wait like in warband, you could force an open battle in one of the mountain passes if you now they have to go through there.

But that's the thing. The entire map consists of mountain passes. None of them are strategically important because if you block one, the enemy could very easily take a detour.

隐藏

The strategic advantage of a mountain pass is that you funnel the enemy and their supply chain into a long narrow valley for an extended period. There's nothing of the sort in this map.

 

[lolbash]

Callum did say something about showing off the world map in a dev blog in the future, so maybe Taleworlds already fixed the issue and we don't know about it.

 

[Oxtocoatl]

From the very first moment they explained us the idea about mountains, I was worried that these choke points would be used as an excuse to drop the plans for a more advanced campaign AI, that would actually take logical decisions, and the more time passes by, the more I fear that they're still OK with choke points acting as a substitute for a better AI.

I hear your concerns. AI development is notoriously difficult and has plagued just about every strategy game always. While I like the idea of choke points, even I don`t think it can work unless the campaign AI has some kind of strategic calculation behind it, which the WB AI really doesn`t seem to have. Making the faction lords co-ordinate more and giving them strategic priorities would go a long way. TW has said that combat AI will be improved upon, but I`ve yet to hear about changes to campaign map behavior.
I will say that, having played Shogun 2, the choke points do mask AI inefficiencies pretty effectively.

I think thoughtful use of rivers, with few bridges, would have been a good way to provide extra choke points or channeling of armies towards one another without having quite so many mountains; I think that would make for a more realistic and appealing map- you wouldn't have to make it an absolutely impassable obstacle either, you could provide realistic but inconvenient options such as making a fleet of rafts to take an army across, but this would require time and wood harvested from a nearby forest to accomplish (my idea is you would have to go to the forest and spend time harvesting timber on the world map, then carry these materials to the river).

Also, there could be alternative routes to a lot of areas, but alternatives which have costs to them. So going the 'other' way might involve traversing a high moorland (or desert or marsh, etc.) where there is not much food to forage and it is cold, reducing morale and increasing attrition (men either dying of illness or deserting), plus there may not be useful paths because it is not a commonly used route, meaning your travel speed would be slower. The upside to using this route may be to bypass an enemy castle or avoid an army you know or expect to be waiting for you, or to avoid crossing the territory of a neutral faction who you don't want to anger.

This is a good idea. I think it is often forgotten by people how under-developed an impassable much of Europe was in the middle ages. We need more river deltas, marshlands, and deep woods. A clear defensive benefit should also be added to holding terrain that is defensible: If you`re holding a bridge, the game should let you start the battle in position to defend that bridge.



Factions getting angry when you march an army across their lands would be a major improvement. Medieval armies basically sustained themselves by looting the countryside, and having even a supposedly neutral army cross your territory would not sit well with most lords. Just look at the mayhem the First Crusade caused in Christian Europe.
This could be another effective counter to faction armies running rampant far away from their home territory, trying to gobble up isolated castles that happen to be poorly defended. It would effectively force factions to focus their warring efforts on factions close to home.

Increasing the role of logistics would also accomplish this. Just make it really hard to maintain an army too far away from the nearest friendly base for long. Adding supply routes to major armies that are visible and are closely linked to morale and combat proficiency would also be strategically very interesting. Of course this would mean differentiating between massive armies and smaller parties. A bandit group of 5 doesn`t really have to worry about supply routes.

 

[Kentucky 『 ＨＥＩＧＵＩ 』 James]

The main issue with simulating supply warfare isn't so mucn programming the AI, it's the pathfinding. Navigation algorithms are designed to find the shortest route by distance, but the moment you start being ambiguous about which is the "right" route, and telling the AI that certain passages should be avoided in certain circumstances, the algorithms get far more complicated.

 

[Duh]

The main issue with simulating supply warfare isn't so mucn programming the AI, it's the pathfinding. Navigation algorithms are designed to find the shortest route by distance, but the moment you start being ambiguous about which is the "right" route, and telling the AI that certain passages should be avoided in certain circumstances, the algorithms get far more complicated.

If we are able to create regions via texture overlays (alternatives may exists, but that is prolly the most accurate + efficient + easy way), one could abstract that sorta thing and vary supply consumption (and other consequences) depending on whether or not a region is controlled, contested or hostile. That, however, requires quite a bit of work on the campaign AI.

 

[Kentucky 『 ＨＥＩＧＵＩ 』 James]

Yep. Something similar to the Hearts of Iron system might work, but getting the AI to understand the system and use it properly is another thing entirely.

 

[vota dc]

There aren't just mountains for chokepoints, there are lakes too. They could adf broad rivers that can be crossed with bridges only and swamps with many microlakes.

 

[Roccoflipside]

The main issue with simulating supply warfare isn't so mucn programming the AI, it's the pathfinding. Navigation algorithms are designed to find the shortest route by distance, but the moment you start being ambiguous about which is the "right" route, and telling the AI that certain passages should be avoided in certain circumstances, the algorithms get far more complicated.

I feel that this applies to the idea of a road system as well. As much as I want to see some sort of road system implemented, it could be difficult to have the ai use the roads, but no only use the road system. There would have to be some sort of risk/reward calculation, otherwise ai would only travel on roads, the fastest/most efficient way, rather than deciding to go through the roads or try to take the longer, more difficult, but perhaps less patrolled route through the mountain pass. Perhaps a region system could help alleviate that too, in a friendly/neutral region they'd take the roads, while in a contested/enemy region they would ignore roads and travel on the countryside. Then again, that's a bit simplistic, and could make it a little too easy to know if an enemy is on the road or not just by looking at what region you're in.

 

[Oxtocoatl]

There aren't just mountains for chokepoints, there are lakes too. They could adf broad rivers that can be crossed with bridges only and swamps with many microlakes.

I noticed this too! It`s interesting, because WB has no inland bodies of water that I can think on, whereas BL seems to deploy several large lakes with settlements on opposing shores. One has to wander, will it just be an obstacle or might there be naval transport or trade?

I feel that this applies to the idea of a road system as well. As much as I want to see some sort of road system implemented, it could be difficult to have the ai use the roads, but no only use the road system. There would have to be some sort of risk/reward calculation, otherwise ai would only travel on roads, the fastest/most efficient way, rather than deciding to go through the roads or try to take the longer, more difficult, but perhaps less patrolled route through the mountain pass. Perhaps a region system could help alleviate that too, in a friendly/neutral region they'd take the roads, while in a contested/enemy region they would ignore roads and travel on the countryside. Then again, that's a bit simplistic, and could make it a little too easy to know if an enemy is on the road or not just by looking at what region you're in.

This is true and the most likely reason why they haven`t implemented road systems in previous games. Tying armies entirely to roads would be difficult and adding too many variables would make it challenging for the AI. Travelling along roads should definitely be much faster than in the wilderness. I could also imagine negative morale effects to marching in difficult terrain, with the possible exception of "home ground", for example, Battanians wouldn`t take morale or maybe even speed hits in deep forests, while Aserai could traverse the dunes of their homeland with equal ease.
It always bugged me in WB how the desert environment had no practical effect on invading armies. Swadian knights should be cooking in their armor and struggle against the more lightly armored Sarranids.

 

[lolbash]

It always bugged me in WB how the desert environment had no practical effect on invading armies. Swadian knights should be cooking in their armor and struggle against the more lightly armored Sarranids.

Because that is the exact opposite of the definiton of fun. Imagine getting 10k denars then buying yourself a nice suit of armor only to find out you have to throw it away becuse you attack 50% slower in the desert.

 

[Duh]

Challenge can be fun. Your fun > realism argument doesn't really hold up in a lot of cases because the two are not mutually exclusive. The problem isn't in making it a challenging but rewarding experience in the player (at least not in my eyes), but to build an AI that can deal with all these factors appropriately (campaign ai).

 

[lolbash]

Even if the AI configured itself to wear robes and shirts in the desert, I still think this is a bad idea where someone is arguing for realism>fun.

Here are the pros and cons if wearing metal armor in the desert slows you down and cooks you to death:

Pros:

-more immersion for people who push for realism in Bannerlord

Cons:

-you are punishing the player for upgrading.

When you buy better armor, it should be an upgrade. The player worked hard for the armor. That itself is a challenge, assuming Taleworlds made money a much more challenging task in Bannerlord.

But if you have to throw all that away just so you can travel to the desert without penalties during battle like losing health over time and attacking slower, I feel this is more of a way to just hurt players for the sake of realism.

 

[Oxtocoatl]

Even if the AI configured itself to wear robes and shirts in the desert, I still think this is a bad idea where someone is arguing for realism>fun.
Here are the pros and cons if wearing metal armor in the desert slows you down and cooks you to death:
Pros:
-more immersion for people who push for realism in Bannerlord

Cons:
-you are punishing the player for upgrading.
When you buy better armor, it should be an upgrade. The player worked hard for the armor. That itself is a challenge, assuming Taleworlds made money a much more challenging task in Bannerlord.

But if you have to throw all that away just so you can travel to the desert without penalties during battle like losing health over time and attacking slower, I feel this is more of a way to jist hurt players for the sake of realism.

Because that is the exact opposite of the definiton of fun. Imagine getting 10k denars then buying yourself a nice suit of armor only to find out you have to throw it away becuse you attack 50% slower in the desert.

Armor doesn`t have to be heavy to be comparatively good. If you intend to campaign in the desert, why not invest in desert-gear? You could acquire a more suitable suit of arms with you hard earned money.

Besides, my argument wasn`t so much about realism as about mechanics: Sarranids in WB are constantly the underdogs even on their own turf, because they lack the heavy hitters of Rhodoks, the arrow sponges of the Swadians and the mobility of the Khergits. WB`s been built in such a way that fielding light troops has no upside when compared to heavier troops.

And who said it has to affect attack speed or eat away at your health? I was talking morale penalties, for example, or reducing campaign map speed, or causing party attrition. Something in the vein of spending a night at sea in VC or entering the Fangorn Forest with orcs in The Last Days of The Third Age. I agree that hampering the player in battle would be really frustrating. As for battle I would say the existing speed and maneuver penalty on armored horses is enough.

 

[Duh]

Even if the AI configured itself to wear robes and shirts in the desert, I still think this is a bad idea where someone is arguing for realism>fun.

Here are the pros and cons if wearing metal armor in the desert slows you down and cooks you to death:

Pros:

-more immersion for people who push for realism in Bannerlord

Cons:

-you are punishing the player for upgrading.

When you buy better armor, it should be an upgrade. The player worked hard for the armor. That itself is a challenge, assuming Taleworlds made money a much more challenging task in Bannerlord.

But if you have to throw all that away just so you can travel to the desert without penalties during battle like losing health over time and attacking slower, I feel this is more of a way to just hurt players for the sake of realism.

1. You are taking that quite literally. It could just be a morale hit, increase supply usage, etc. These don't have to have an immediate tangible effect either. It could just be that you need to plan accordingly - with deserts forcing shorter campaigns or more raiding for certain unsuited factions.
2. You are not punishing the player for upgrading. You are punishing him for not using appropriate equipment or troops. Variation in troop utility can greatly add to the game and isn't really a novel concept - just not always all that easy to balance/implement. However, the linear upgrade mechanic you are describing (always better no matter the circumstance) gets boring fast (even if they look different the underlying mechanic would be the same) and is,ultimately, lazy game design. But it's not like that is the case with equipment (most likely). Heavy armor will be slower, etc.

Even if the AI configured itself to wear robes and shirts in the desert, I still think this is a bad idea where someone is arguing for realism>fun.

The issue is more with the AI planning out a campaign f.e. and choosing appropriate troops. Choosing to pursue/engage enemies in various terrains that may benefit/harm them. And other stuff along those lines.